


Hold the Line

by 1863



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Loyalty, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21629335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1863/pseuds/1863
Summary: Winston knew that John would come for him. But more importantly, Winston knowsJohn, too.
Relationships: John Wick/Winston
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55
Collections: 300bpm Flash Exchange November 2019





	Hold the Line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asuralucier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/gifts).



> Written for the prompted song [Natural](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZOYXCvsFL0), by Imagine Dragons.

“You shot me,” John says. “In the chest.”

“Yes,” Winston agrees, and eyes the door. “That is true.”

“More than once.”

“That is also true.”

John takes a step to the right, blocking Winston’s view of the door. 

“Don’t.” 

That’s it, just that single word, but it’s all John needs to convey the kind of warning that very few people ever get. Winston knows that above all else, John’s work is marked by efficiency; if all John wants is him dead, there would have been a bullet in his head before he even saw John coming.

But for all his outward reserve there are some things that run deep in John — old loyalties being chief among them, and Winston isn’t above using this knowledge to his own advantage. Indeed, he has no choice _but_ to use it, considering the coldness of John’s stare right now.

“There was no other way, Jonathan,” he says. “Surely you can see that?” 

John says nothing.

“And I may be Management,” Winston continues, “but I assure you, I do still know how to use a gun.”

“Are you saying you missed my head on purpose?” 

“I’m saying I was saving your life.” 

John takes a step closer and it’s only the experience that comes with 40-plus years of serving the Table that lets Winston ignore the instinct to flinch. 

“I fell,” John says slowly, voice very low, “off the roof of the hotel.” He takes another step, then another and another, the sound of his footfalls against the tile punctuating each sentence as he keeps coming closer. “My bones broke. My spine bruised. My skull cracked open.”

There’s something relentless about the way John closes the distance between them, each step an inexorable march towards an ending that, for a man like John, is all but a given.

Or it would be, if the person he was coming for was anyone other than Winston.

“But you didn’t die.”

John pauses in his advance, only two or three steps away. “No,” he says. “I didn’t.” 

There’s a note of wariness in his voice and Winston knows he needs to press his advantage now, _right_ now, lest it get frozen solid by the coldness that’s still in John’s eyes. If he doesn’t manage to convince John now, he never will.

“The Adjudicator had us all against the wall.” Winston weighs the risk, then steps forward himself. “There was only one way out.”

John doesn’t back up, not even an inch, but his fingers twitch and Winston his forcibly reminded of the fact that John doesn’t need a gun to finish a job. Still, those hands are in possession of more than one skill, and when John presses a hand against Winston’s chest, preventing him from coming any closer, Winston is also reminded of exactly what some of those skills are. 

John’s palm is warm even through the barrier of his shirt, warm and absolutely unyielding. Winston remembers deft fingers and a brutally strong grip; remembers bruised knuckles going white as they gripped the edge of a desk or a headboard. 

His heart starts beating just a little harder, a little faster, and from the way John takes a sudden breath, he must know that it isn’t due to fear.

But John isn’t unaffected either, and Winston sees the door to a different ending start to crack open — one that, if he’s honest with himself, some part of him had been hoping for.

“I know it wasn’t a risk that you agreed to take,” Winston adds. “But the Adjudicator didn’t exactly give us time to discuss it.”

“We had time,” John insists. “In the Armory, in the Executive Lounge. You said nothing.” 

“Jonathan.” Winston shakes his head. “At the risk of angering you further, your acting skills leave something to be desired. I had to ensure that my betrayal looked absolutely convincing.”

John’s fingers curl into Winston’s shirt; a silent but unmistakable warning.

“It _did_.”

“And you survived,” Winston says quickly. “You, me, Charon. The Continental. We _all_ survived.” John doesn’t reply and Winson presses on, sensing that he’s close. “Do you really think I’d have stayed here, in the hotel — the most obvious place — with no guards, no extra security, if I didn’t know that you would come back for me? And not to kill me, Jonathan,” he adds quietly. “Not after everything else I’ve done for you.” Winston looks him in the eye. “Or with you. Or _to_ you.”

Something crosses John’s face, but it’s too far beneath the surface for Winston to catch it.

“You didn’t want me to find you just so you could explain,” John says. His mouth twists, in a way that is most definitely not a smile. “Or to do anything else with me. Or _to_ me.”

Winston has the grace to look away for a moment. It was a low blow, the kind he would never normally make, but he has so few options as it is. He won’t apologise for it, even if he genuinely regrets the result.

“You’ve always been loyal, Jonathan,” he says instead. “But not to the Table. Not to Viggo Tarasov, or the Roma Ruska, or anyone else you formally pledged your allegiance to. No,” Winston murmurs, reaching up and wrapping his fingers around John’s wrist, “the only people you’ve ever been truly loyal to were your wife…” John’s eyes harden, but he doesn’t interrupt. “And me.”

Winston can feel John’s pulse stutter against his palm, although the look on his face doesn’t change at all.

“What she was to me,” John says, after a long, tense moment of silence, “is something you are not.” 

“I don’t claim to be.” Winston leans forward, as much as he can with John’s hand still pressed against his chest. “She loved you, Jonathan. But I _know_ you.”

“I told her,” John replies, but it’s a flimsy protest and they both know it. “I told her what I used to do.” 

“No,” Winston says, and shakes his head. “Not used to do. Not even still do. You may have told her that you kill people for a living, Jonathan, but you didn’t tell her what you _are_.” 

John’s jaw tightens. “And what’s that?”

Winston looks over John’s stony face, into his mirror-black eyes, and knows that deep down, John already knows the answer. That on some level, he’s always known, and that the only time he ever let himself acknowledge it was when Winston rewarded him for his service with more than gold coins.

Winston may not serve the Table in the same way John does, but he can recognise a fatal weakness when he sees one.

He smiles, and goes in for the kill.

“That you’re a natural, Jonathan.”

And despite the flash of — _something_ — in John’s eyes, despite the hand still pressed against Winston’s chest and keeping him at a distance — John doesn’t deny it. Winston lets go of his wrist but John keeps his hand where it is.

“What do you want from me, Winston?”

“Nothing you haven’t given me already.”

John stares at him, waiting, but Winston doesn’t elaborate. He’d phrased it that way deliberately, of course, and if John wants to pretend he doesn’t understand what Winston means, then it will be a willful act of ignorance — the consequences of which will be entirely of John’s own making.

The silence stretches on and on, until it’s pulled so taut that the very air seems to vibrate with it. And then —

John lets his hand drop. 

He steps around Winston until the wall is at his back, and when Winston mirrors his earlier action, laying his hand on John’s chest, John doesn’t resist when Winston pushes him against it. 

“Will you hold the line, Jonathan?” Winston asks. He leans in, slowly, and John’s breath hitches slightly when Winston licks his lips. “When everyone else is giving up or giving in, will you defy the Table and stand with The Continental? With New York City?” Winston brushes his mouth over John’s lips; barely touching, barely a kiss, but it still makes John gasp, a wordless sound of need escaping his throat. “Will you stand with _me_?”

“Yes.”

The word is hot against Winston’s mouth, a heated whisper that confirms the answer to more than one question. 

“Swear it to me.”

“I swear.” John swallows but he doesn’t hesitate. “I will serve,” he recites. “I will be of service.” Winston leans back a little to better see John’s face, and John instinctively darts forward — chasing his mouth, unwilling to give up any of the ground that’s taken them so long to find again. “I will be of service,” he repeats. “To you.”

Winston briefly closes his eyes. He opens them when he feels John’s hand on his chest again, slowly moving up, over his throat and the back of his neck, until John’s fingers tangle in his hair. Then they form a fist, pulling just hard enough to skirt the edge of pain.

Winston understands. Things between them aren’t the way they used to be, and never will be again. If the Table falls, then so too must the structures beneath it. 

“And I make the same oath to you, Jonathan,” Winston says. “Regardless of whether or not we succeed — or survive,” he adds, “we’ll do it together.”

John doesn’t respond, but he does pull Winston closer. 

The last thought Winston has, before lips and hands and the heat of bare, warm skin overwhelm him, is that John’s true nature isn’t the only secret Winston keeps for him. He knows something else too, something that the Table seems to have forgotten.

Despite spending the last few months bearing more than one target — from the Tarasovs, from the Camorra, from the High Table itself — John is still the last one standing. He knows how to survive even when the whole world is after him.

But John has always been a better hunter than prey. 


End file.
